Sunburned Zebra
by Gunney
Summary: It's hot in Bay City, again. The Torino is conking out, again. And Starsky and Hutch are starting to feel worn out.
1. Chapter 1

Summer.

Hot, sweaty, dead with no breeze, summer.

In New York City summers had been great. The streets were hot but the alleys were cool. The edge of the city was lined with docks and piers where kids could swim and jump for hours. And when the weather got really bad sometimes the firemen would tap a hydrant and there'd be a cool spray of water for a half-an-hour turning the street into a beach front, and the sky into tiny rainbows.

You could learn to love the heat in New York.

In Bay City…

Starsky stared out the windshield at the waves of heat coming off the hood, fighting the headache that had started a week ago and hung on. He felt hot from the inside out and it didn't help that the Torino's temperature gauge was going haywire. The engine was overheating and worse, the one part he needed to take the car to Merle's and get his baby up and running at 100% again didn't seem to exist anymore.

"It's the fickle nature of the consumer that's done this to me." Starsky grumbled, watching a handful of two-year-old Fords roll by in the commuter lane. A lane that Hutch had annoyingly pointed out earlier that they could have taken. "They get a car and they drive it for two years and then a newer model comes out with flashy lights and twice as much chrome and they ditch a perfectly good horse and trade it in for…"

A brand new Ford Pinto rolled by and Starsky glared at it, from its recessed headlights to its rear window hatchback. "That.." he said, with as much venom as he could manage.

Hutch sat in the passenger seat sipping the last of his goat milk shake, surprised it hadn't curdled in the time they'd been sitting in the middle lane.

"It's a Ford." The blond said helpfully, then continued to sip.

"I know it's a Ford, Hutch, but it's a new Ford." Starsky argued, his voice rising faster than normal.

"New Ford, old Ford, what does it matter. It's all the same company, what's your beef?"

"What's my beef!?" Starsky asked, taking a moment to glare at Hutch for his wording before he glared at Hutch for his lack of concern. "Ford Motor Company will not continue to make spare parts for cars that no one is buying anymore. That's my beef."

"You want ol Henry Ford to go broke making Torino parts until this rotten vegetable dies?" Hutch snapped back, not a fan of Starsky's week-and-a-half long grump, or the heat, or the fact that they were in the Torino because his car was in the shop. Not to mention that the Torino was historically unreliable in hot weather.

"I want the Ford Motor Company to continue to provide replacement parts for a vehicle that will undoubtedly become a collector's piece in the distant future."

Hutch started laughing before Starsky even finished, practically snorting the last of his shake out of his nose, some of it splashing on the hot, black leather seats. Starsky didn't see it happen and Hutch covered the stain quickly, not interested in dying.

The traffic finally started to move and Starsky eased the suffering engine up to speed, transitioning into the commuter lane and getting past the long line of equally grumpy and sweaty people. He'd just about caught up with the Pinto when a teal blue streak flashed by on the gravel berm, cutting him off and nearly clipping Hutch's side of the car.

It was a brand new Ford Mustang convertible, stuffed full of teenagers probably headed for the beach. They were shouting encouragement to the driver for his supposed driving skill and laughing and pointing at the two cops sweating under the hot red roof.

Starsky's hands tightened on wheel.

Hutch saw the writing on the wall and went for a distraction. "Hey...what's the part that you need, there, buddy. Maybe I can find it in one of those old magazines at the station."

"It's the temperature warning gauge. It's what keeps the engine from burning out without warning and if Merle can't even find it, you lookin' in a magazine isn't gonna do any good."

The teal Mustang kept the Torino in sight, swerving on and off the berm, the kids in the back egging them on. Starsky'd been watching the heat gauge, stubbornly stuck below the normal line, knowing the drive to work alone was going to push what the engine could handle. Never mind the illegality of it, a drag race against a brand new Mustang would kill the Torino dead.

"That's what I'm talkin' about, Hutch. An entire generation of consumers that don't know quality when they see it. These rich little cheapskates are gonna grow up buying the next, biggest, flashiest thing on the market and leave real cars rusting in...weed-filled back alleys."

"Come on, Starsk. You're acting like the tomato's already passe. You'll find the part. What's so special about it, the fitting?"

Traffic had slowed again, the kids in the convertible turning around and focusing on other things.

"Yeah it's the fitting. Do you know how many Torinos I've already found in junk yards? It's depressing."

"Do you know how many Ford Galaxie's I've found in junkyards?" Hutch said, crossing his arms with the beginnings of a pout.

"What are you talkin' about, _I_ found your Ford in a junk yard."

Starsky smirked softly at the glare Hutch gave him, then pulled the car forward the final twenty feet to the exit that would get them off this godforsaken tarmac and into downtown. The fact that the Torino made it at all was something of a miracle.

Starsky parked it under the relative shelter of the police garage roof and they dragged through the heat into a stuffy building full of sweating cops, sitting in front of whirring fans.

The day, like the past six, was full of three times the calls, most of them gigantic wastes of time. The heat made everybody crazy.

Most of the calls were husband and wife spats, school-age teenagers with too much testosterone and not enough to do, and the business owners that were very quickly tired of those teenagers rousting their shops.

Their last call of the day was the worst. A gang of teenage boys had been setting off firecrackers in an empty lot. Each explosion had given them the courage to get progressively closer to the backyard of an eighty-year-old man with an eight foot spite fence surrounding his prize garden.

The boys had decided it was a good idea to line the fence with firecrackers, winding the short fuses together. They had just set off the first fuse when the Torino pulled into the lot, answering the old man's frightened call. Starsky took off after the kid with the lighter and Hutch went after the kid with firecrackers hanging out of his back pocket, neither one of them realizing what was coming until it was too late.

Instead of the chain reaction the kids had been hoping for, the first burning fuse had set fire to the dry grass on the lot-side of the fence. All the firecrackers went up at once, blowing the bottom half of the fence to bits and setting the top half of the fence on fire. Starsky, Hutch and the two kids they'd managed to catch, hit the dirt.

When Hutch picked himself up again his left shoulder was bloodied, part of the broken bottle he'd landed on still sticking out of his arm. Starsky stood up with even more of a headache than he'd had before. An inch-long splinter from the fence had been driven into his forehead sending blood down the side of his face.

But the worst injury was to the Torino. Starsky dragged the brat he'd caught to his feet via his belt, and cuffed him enroute to the car that now had a hole in the front windshield. The hole had been created by a flying knot from the wood of the fence. The dense collection of sap and wood pulp had blown through the glass then landed in a smoldering heap on the driver's seat where it was currently burning its way into the upholstery.

The inside of the Torino reeked of burning chemicals and smoldering cowhide and Starsky burned his fingers getting the knot out of the hole it had made in the seat. Then he burned his ass through his jeans, sitting on the still smoldering hide too soon. He got dispatch to send an ambulance and firetrucks and took over watching the two criminals while Hutch went into the old man's yard to check on him.

Old man Harley was angry at them, of course, for not responding instantaneously when he had called and had nothing but negative things to say about Bay City PD. He was just as negative about the fire trucks that arrived after he, and his garden hose, had put out the fire.

He insisted on having Starsky and Hutch's badge numbers and promised he would report their slovenly appearance and behavior to their superiors. It bothered him, not that the officers were wearing jeans and sweat soaked t-shirts, but that Starsky seemed drunk and Hutch had bloodied himself and not had the decency to cover it up.

"These are the citizen's we're protecting?" Starsky had commented, seeing to it that the two boys found transport back to the station, before he joined his partner on the tailgate of the ambulance for treatment. "Ungrateful old coot." Starsky groused wincing as his head was doused with saline solution with little warning.

Hutch was trying to focus on not jerking every time a piece of glass came out of his shoulder. "It's the h-heat, Starsk. Once it breaks, the c-city can get back to normal."

"Look at my car…" Starsky sighed, his eyes watering because of the proximity of the pain in his head. He would've been crying over the Torino given the chance. The sun softened glass of the windshield had started to buckle toward the hole the knot had made and the driver's side door was open showing the pile of padding the firemen had dug out of the seat to make sure the interior wasn't still smoldering. "Do you know how hard that seat is gonna be to replace? Real black leather, bucket seats."

"Want me to start checking junk yards?" Hutch asked and he watched his partner fight the smile and lose. Hutch slapped Starsky's thigh, glad the David he knew was still there, if buried under the frustration and pain. "I'll buy you a beer once were off duty."

"No you won't." The EMT working on Hutch said.

"What!?" Hutch demanded.

"We're giving you pain killers when you leave here, and penicillin, you can't drink with that stuff."

Starsky snorted, "Give me a bottle of Jack Daniels, you get painkiller and antibiotic in one gulp-OW!"

The two very grumpy men that returned to the station an hour after they were supposed to have been off duty smelled strangely of wood smoke mixed with the noxious stink of burning flesh, saline, antiseptic and sweat. The part of Starsky's head that had been bandaged was clean, the rest of him dirt smudged and smoke streaked. Hutch was cradling his elbow, keeping his shoulder from impacting anything in his tired state, just as dirty as his partner.

They stumbled like zombies to their desks, Starsky automatically going for the coffee while Hutch rolled an arrest report into the typewriter and started at the keys. Dobey stepped out of his office and watched his men for a moment, baffled.

"Sergeant Starsky?"

"Yeah, Cap."

"Do you mind telling me what you and Hutch are uh...doing here?"

There had been only an inch of coffee left in the carafe, but that had only occurred to Starsky after he had poured it all into one of their cups. He studied the low level of coffee in his mug for a long moment, stared into his partner's empty cup, then worked at shifting the liquid back and forth between the two mugs until it was even.

"Finishing up our reports, Cap." Starsky finally responded, giving Hutch his sip of coffee and managing to make two sips out of what was in his own cup.

Hutch's head was practically touching the keyboard, his chin almost resting on the desktop, typing with only the forefinger of his right hand. The coffee cup appeared in his periphery and he straightened with a wince and drank.

"In that case what should I do with the reports you called in?" Dobey asked, his thumb over his shoulder.

Both Starsky and Hutch froze.

"We called in our reports?"

"Yep." Dobey said. "And then you told me you were going home."

Dobey decided to follow his men home this time, insisting, despite the impassioned pleas that they were fine. He and Starsky walked Hutch into his apartment, then he did the same for Starsky, only backing down the brunet's drive when he was certain that Starsky's apartment door was locked and his detective well on his way to bed.

He would watch them closely come morning and at the first sign of fever or heat exhaustion he would send them home, Dobey decided.

The city would be fine without them for a day or two; but not for a lifetime.

The following morning, when neither of them called, and neither of them showed, Dobey wasn't surprised. As exhausted as they'd seemed the night before, he could allow for them forgetting to set an alarm and sleeping in. He fought the urge to worry until noon, then was about to put in a call when his phone rang.

It was Starsky on the line. He'd slept in and since he was Hutch's ride, they were both going to be late getting on duty. They would be in, in an hour. Starsky was grumpy but he seemed coherent, and apologetic. Dobey gave the guff that was due, then set the phone back down and smiled softly. No need to worry.

* * *

"How's your head?" Hutch shouted over the wind coming through the car windows. The hole in the windshield had been covered with a piece of cardboard and taped down. A temporary fix until Starsky could get a day off and drop the car with Merle.

"I've had a migraine for a week. Looks like it's not goin' away anytime soon." Starsky shouted back, trying to focus on the temperature gauge and the hood of the car, but constantly distracted by the square of cardboard and the hole under his butt.

"How's your arm?"

"Tried to take a shower this morning…"

"Yeah."

"Shampoo and all that.."

"Yeah."

"Bad idea." Hutch said, shaking his head.

Starsky snorted, caught the narrowed eyed look from Hutch, then laughed and his blond partner joined him.

"What'd Dobey say when you called him?"

"The usual. 'This sort of irresponsibility won't hack it in my department. Don't you know what an alarm clock is Starsky!?'"

"Yeah? He's in a good mood today." Hutch said, smirking before he glanced out the window. "Uh oh."

"Uh oh, what?"

"Here come our friends." Hutch said minutes before a teal blue, top-down streak went by on the berm.

This time there was no reason for it, and the irritation and pain of the past week, the damage to his beloved car, not to mention the blatant flaunting of road laws, instantly made Starsky's blood boil. The Torino's engine went from a sedate growl to a high pitched whine as Starsky forced it through the gears and he shouted, "Put up the bubble!"

"Wha- Starsky, we're not even on duty yet."

"Put up the bubble!" Starsky insisted, cutting the distance between the Torino and the Mustang.

"This is a county highway, we don't have jurisdiction."

"The number of kids in that vehicle exceeds the manufacturer capacity, the top is down, and they're driving at speeds that are dangerous to themselves and others on the roadway. I'm pulling those little jerks over! Put up the bubble."

Hutch turned on the MARS light and snapped it onto the burning hot roof, singeing his wrist in the process, then braced himself on the hot dash and the hotter lip of the window, before he reached for the radio and called in the license plate.

Instead of reacting the way most kids would to a siren and a flashing light and pulling the car over, the driver of the Mustang seemed to think it was a gag. He slowed down enough for Starsky to pull the Torino up even, watching Hutch try to wave him to the side of the road. The kid was blonde with gold rimmed sunglasses and the kind of tan that promised he hadn't even tried to get a summer job. He gave the Torino a dramatic once over, and shouted, "God, you guys are too old to be cops!"

Then the Mustang spat smoke and took off. Starsky growled and pushed the Torino faster, ignoring Hutch as he called for additional pursuit vehicles. They were even with the Mustang again when the first spout of smoke came from the end of the hood. A spray of water from the radiator hit the underside of the hood next, water spitting out and over the windshield, wetting the tape and the cardboard.

The wind, at the speed they were going, was too much for the wet adhesive and the cardboard ripped away even as they slowed, the tunnel of air coming through the hole creating a low pitched moan. The Torino's last dying breath, before the engine cut out and Starsky slipped the car into neutral letting it coast to the side of the road.

They sat in silence watching two Highway Patrol cars scream by. Hutch stared straight ahead, saying nothing, waiting for Starsky to explode. Instead his partner set the parking brake and stepped out of the car walking down the road about a car length.

Hutch pulled the MARS light from the roof and shut it off, dumping it into the footwell before he stepped out of the Torino and joined Starsky.

They watched the HP cars until they were out of sight.

"Those kids are gonna kill somebody." Starsky muttered, angrier than Hutch had thought he'd be. Deeply angry. Righteously angry. The kind of angry that came from being rendered helpless and immobile. Hutch gritted his teeth and raised his injured arm, hooking his hand around the back of Starsky's neck and squeezing at the tension there.

He felt the set of his partner's shoulders relax a little and they turned together to look at the Torino. Starsky sighed and walked toward the car alone, muttering, "What am I gonna do with you?"

Hutch let him be alone with the car a minute, watching Starsky's hands go to his hips, his head shaking before he braved the heat of the hood and lifted it. He stepped back slowly from the steam, then stepped back in once it'd dissipated, touching and jerking his hand away from a few of the things under the hood.

The thought of his partner without the flamboyant car that he'd nursed for so long brought a sad pang to Hutch's heart that felt very much like losing a part of the team. It was a car, sure, a hunk of metal and rubber, but with Starsky behind the wheel it had become more than that. In every situation but a heatwave the Torino was a reliable, constant part of their partnership.

Hutch began to think about the path of investigation that he could take to figure out the temperature glitch in the Torino makeup. He waited until Starsky had opened the driver's side door and gone for the radio, calling a tow, before he rejoined his partner.

"Get a hold of Dobey?"

Starsky gave him a tired look from the shadow of the driver's side and shook his head. "Haven't worked up the nerve."

Hutch smirked then held out his hand and after a moment Starsky stood up, freeing the driver's side seat for his partner and handing him the mic. Starsky walked out of earshot, not yet ready to hear anyone actually say that his car was dead. Even temporarily dead.

"Dispatch, connect me with Captain Dobey, please."

"Hutchinson, why did I just hear Zebra 3 put out a call to highway patrol?"

Hutch's mouth hung open for a long time and he scratched at his head, hoping that might stimulate a good lie. "Uh…" Hutch cleared his throat then said, "It's a long story, cap. The Torino's...conked out."

"You two alright?"

"We're ok. Hot and tired. But we'll be fine."

"You're not fine. You're dead in the water. How long until your wheels are back up, Hutch?"

"Mechanic said I'd have it by Monday."

"Then you two are off duty for the weekend."

"Captain-"

"I should'a done it yesterday when you were injured. It's too hot to argue. Take care of the Torino. Take care of yourselves. Dobey out."

Hutch heard gravel crunch under a sneaker, heard his partner grunt and sigh softly and watched Starsky sit down in the shade of the trunk of the Torino, his back against the side of the car, eyes closed, head resting just under corner of the stripe.

"Dobey tell us to knock off for the weekend?" Starsky called.

"Yep."

"Sorry about this, partner."

Hutch stepped out of the car after replacing the mic and sat next to the brunet. "You wanna tell me somethin'?"

Starsky tilted his head toward Hutch, opened one eye, then closed it again and rolled his head back. "What?"

"Do you think they called us old...because we look old, or because we were driving this car?"

Starsky snorted, then giggled, then winced at the flare in his head and took a deep breath. "I think they're young punks who never had a beat down because they disrespected the wrong kid in the lunch line. That's what I think." Starsky's eyes opened again and he stared lazily at the highway. "They're rich kids, you know. They're pampered. They never-" Starsky cut himself off and glanced at his partner.

"Oh...go on, please. This is fascinating, Starsky." Hutch said, crossing his arms over his chest and faking a bruised ego.

Starsky gave a wry grin and slapped his hand down on Hutch's elbow and squeezed, before he folding his hands in his lap again. "It doesn't matter."

"Zebra Three this is HP Car 24. We have your blue bird in custody for multiple counts of endangering minors. Mom and Dad are pissed. Over."

Starsky grinned and Hutch groaned softly, getting back to his feet to answer the call with a, "That's the way we like 'em, Car 24. Owe you one. Zebra Three, out."


	2. Chapter 2

Getting the Torino off the highway wasn't as much of a struggle as getting the Torino up the driveway the way Starsky insisted it go.

"Tell me again, why we aren't leaving it at Merle's?" Hutch asked from where he sat in the driver's seat, keeping the steering wheel pointed in the right direction.

"Cause there's nothing Merle can do until I find the part." Starsky said, grunting from behind the Torino where he and the tow guy had their shoulders to the bumper. "The rest of it I can handle on my own. How close are we to the wall? Hutch?"

The brakes squealed, the car became impossible to move and Starsky gritted his teeth against the blade of the bumper digging into his shoulder, still pushing until Hutch said, "We're there."

Starsky growled but didn't have the breath to keep it up and went to his knees, panting in the heat. He felt and heard Hutch pull the parking brake and step out of the car.

Hutch came around to stand over the two men nearly prostrate on the ground and said, "Well, that wasn't so tough after all. Somethin' the matter, Starsk?"

"Ha...ha…" Starsky managed staring down the sharp incline of his driveway at the tow truck. They'd barely pushed the Torino thirty feet but it'd felt like miles. He glanced at the tow guy still puffing beside him.

"Gonna make it, Hank?"

"Ye-...yea-..." Hank gave up and nodded his head.

"Wanna come up to the house, grab a beer?"

"Up?" Hank asked, looking with horror at the first set of stairs.

"Want me to bring you _down_ a beer?" Starsky offered, finally getting himself to his feet.

Hank shook his head and both police officers bent to get the man back on his legs. They stayed with him until he was walking steadily, saw him to his truck and even waved goodbye from the top of the drive.

"He didn't wave back." Starsky commented, miffed.

"Probably didn't have the strength."

Starsky turned and laid a loving palm on the trunk of the car, scanning the old girl with the same melancholy look he'd had on his face all afternoon.

Hutch watched him for a minute then asked, "Want me to spend the night? Help you get things started?"

"How were you planning on leaving, exactly? The tow guy just left."

"I could call a cab."

"You wanna call a cab, call a cab." Starsky said, testily.

"I don't want to call a cab, I want to stay here with you. But you're in such a damned foul mood I'd be better off with tow-truck guy." Hutch bit back, almost shouting.

Starsky leaned back a little and eyed his partner before he put his hands in the air. "I don't think Hank would like your company...with that temper."

Hutch raised a warning finger and shook it and Starsky grinned at him.

"Turkey." Hutch muttered then went around his partner and started up the stairs. "You want a beer or not?" He grumped.

"Yeah, I wanna beer. And a pizza. And some chinese." Starsky grumped right back.

From further up the steps he heard Hutch call, "Chinese people don't make pizzas."

Starsky laughed then muttered, "You don't know that…" to himself and went around the front of the car to get to the door of the tool shed that sat under the house. He'd pulled four metal ramps, chocks, a workman's lamp on a power cord and a set of socket wrenches out onto the drive by the time Hutch came back.

Hutch handed him a passably cold beer and said, "No Chinese, and no pizza."

"What?"

"Your phone's out."

"You gotta be kidding. Is the power out too?" Starsky asked going around to the driver's side door and leaning in through the window to get at his radio.

"No...power's fine."

"Central, this is Zebra Three, Central, Zebra Three."

"Zebra Three, this is Central. Hey, aren't you guys supposed to be off duty?"

"Bunch'a busy bodies down at dispatch." Starsky muttered uncharitably then, "Yeah, I'm off duty. But my home phone is out. Any accidents or repairs goin' on around my block?"

"Zebra Three, please hold."

Hutch leaned over the engine of the Torino wincing at the melted hoses, twisted brackets and stretched belts they would probably be repairing or replacing. From the other side of the hood Starsky asked, "Heat waves don't cause phone outages, do they?"

Hutch leaned his head out until he could see the blue eyes under a sweat covered, curl lined brow, and gave his partner a disparaging look before he went back to his beer.

"Zebra three, come in."

"This is Zebra Three."

"No idea on that phone line issue. Maybe you should call the phone company."

Starsky gave dispatch a couple of seconds to hear themselves then said, "Run that advice by me again, central."

There was a pause, then, "Sorry, Starsky. Minnie says she'll make the call."

"Thanks. Zebra Three, out."

"Should'a asked them to order us a pizza while they're at it." Hutch said.

Starsky snapped his fingers. "Knew I forgot something. Hey, I'm gonna check on my neighbors. The old couple next door should be home. Might not just be my phone."

"I think I found your problem, Starsk." Hutch said, coming out from under the hood. He had a hose in his hands that he had ripped from the fitting, the middle of it eaten away by the heat off the engine.

"Where did that come from?"

Hutch looked at him wide eyed for a moment then shrugged.

"Put it back." Starsky called, heading down his driveway. "Keep your hands off my engine!"

The walk to his neighbor's house was longer than it should have been but that was California hospitality for you. Starsky could have shouted for their attention from his bedroom window but the couple next door were too old to hear him, and were more likely to shut their doors tighter if they heard insane shouting going on.

Starsky was surprised to find their driveway empty and even more surprised to find their doors locked. The newspapers had been piled on their stoop to keep cruising break-in artists from suspecting they weren't home.

In the past, especially knowing that Starsky was a cop, the Crane's had made a point of telling him if they were going out of town. Maybe he'd missed it in the hectic week he'd had, but he didn't remember them mentioning a trip. The house on the other side of his had been empty for a while.

Starsky stood at the base of his drive for a long moment scanning the houses on the other side of the street.

He knew some of his neighbors by sight, but had never made a point of talking to them. Their houses were silent and closed up and he was tired, and not in the mood to play friendly neighbor.

"Any luck?" Hutch asked from the top of the drive, before he headed down.

"They aren't home." Starsky said, his confusion evident in his voice.

"Maybe it's bingo night."

Starsky gave him a look then took the beer from Hutch that he'd left on the Torino's trunk. "If they were playing Bingo they got kidnapped by the guy with the ball cage six nights ago."

"Six-"

"Six newspapers piled up on their stoop. And the car's gone."

Starsky started past Hutch but his partner stopped him with a hand on his chest. "Should you be worried?"

Starsky thought about it, turning to study the house in question before he shook his head. "They've never been gone longer than a week. We'll see what happens tomorrow."

Hutch shrugged and sipped from his beer, following Starsky back up the drive.

"You put that hose back?"

"It had a hole in it, Starsk."

* * *

"Starsky!"

"Yeah?"

"Food's ready."

Starsky started to straighten from the hunched position he'd been in, sprawled over the wide engine cavity of the Torino, then froze when his back seized. He hadn't realized how long he'd been in that position. His neck was stiff too, and the cut on his head from the exploding fence felt tight and hot.

Starsky eased out of the glow of the workman's light and glanced around at the darkness that had fallen just in the thirty minutes Hutch had taken to make dinner.

The day had cooled dramatically, helped along by a cool breeze that on the east coast meant a promised storm was coming. There was no telling with California weather but Starsky could hope. "Give me a minute to clean up. Hey.."

"What?"

"Phone workin' yet?"

"Oh yeah. President called for ya." Hutch shouted.

"Oh good...been expecting his call." Starsky muttered, cleaning up his tools and closing the hood of the car, but not latching it.

"What'd ol' Jimmy have to say?" Starsky asked, climbing the steps to his front porch and going straight from the front door to his bathroom.

"Oh, you know, state of the union, he's worried about the election this year. Wants you to take Amy out to a dance on Saturday."

Starsky laughed over the noise of the water in the sink and wiped his face with a towel before he scrutinized the dirty bandage on his head. He was happy to leave it as long as he could but had the feeling Hutch would turn medic on him before too long. "What's she...like...13?"

As he came out Hutch pointed toward the TV turned to a news channel. 13-year-old Amy Carter was featured in a brand new dress, heading to some state function.

"She's not my type. I prefer red-heads. After puberty. What'd you end up making?"

"Whatever I could find." Hutch muttered, stepping away from the stove with a strainer of steaming pasta. There was a pot of red sauce still steaming on a burner and a collection of green stuff in the skillet.

"Is that vegetables?"

"Oh yeah." Hutch said.

"You found vegetables in my house?"

"Hidden under the bag of week old bread-sticks, right where I put them last time I was here."

Starsky gave him a look of mild betrayal and disgust. "You're hiding vegetables in my fridge?"

"Just lookin' out for ya, Starsk." Hutch dumped the vegetables into a serving dish and pulled two fresh beers from the fridge. "Get that last hose out?"

"Left it in. Should be fine for another thousand miles. Once I got a phone, I can get the new hoses delivered and put 'em in tomorrow mornin'."

"What day is tomorrow again?" Hutch asked as Starsky finally settled down at the table, putting pasta on both plates.

"Saturday."

Hutch jolted, rocking the table and the dishes, then lurched to his feet and spun in a circle. "Oh no."

"Oh no, what?"

"I forgot. I completely forgot."

"What!? Forgot what?"

"Luyu! She was flying into town today. She was going to spend the week in Tehachapi, but I invited her to spend the weekend with me."

"When did her flight land?"

Hutch jolted again, then yanked his watch from his pocket. "I got an hour." Hutch went straight for the phone, picked it up, then growled and went for his coat.

"Well, wait a second. What are you gonna do?"

"Call in dispatch, see if I can't get a black and white to give me a ride." Hutch was out the front door before he'd even finished the sentence and Starsky turned in a hasty circle, patting his pants to be sure he had his wallet and house keys before he turned off the stove, grabbed his jacket, and locked the door on his way out.

Hutch was still on the mic when Starsky glanced at the street before descending his front steps. A taxi had just pulled up to one of the houses across the street and Starsky shouted, "Hey!' at the top of his lungs before he bolted down the steps, and down his drive, lurching out into the street and slapping his hands down on the hood of the taxi.

The taxi driver nearly had a heart attack, and looked like he wanted to back his way out of the neighborhood but his previous passenger was still unloading luggage. Starsky pulled out his badge and flashed it, then held up a hand in hopes of calming the driver.

The driver put his hands up and Starsky rolled his eyes, a small part of him realizing that he really needed to calm down. It'd been a hard week, he argued in his head, and went around to the passenger side of the vehicle.

"Hey listen...I'm sorry I scared ya...but my partner and I, we could really use a ride to the airport and...my phone's out right now so...could you just...hang out here."

The taxi driver's eyes were dancing between Starsky and Starsky's driveway where, as it turned out, Hutch had chosen to stand, distracted from his call by his partner racing by. The previous passenger, oblivious to what was going on outside of his own unpacking, had finished emptying the trunk of the cab and shut the trunk lid. The minute it clicked the driver tried to pull his cab away from the curb.

"Hey!" Starsky shouted, angrily, "Hello! We just need a ride...hey!"

The cabby hit the gas a few times, the taxi lurching away from the curb a foot at a time before the driver could see far enough around Starsky to be sure that the road was clear. He hit the gas and the cab was gone, tires squealing into the silence of the neighborhood.

Starsky realized he wasn't alone a second later and glanced up at the college age kid that had just come home for the summer. He still stood on the curb, hand holding out the fair that the cabby had been too scared to take. "Um...he forgot his money."

Starsky shook his head and waved a hand at the kid. "Keep it. He won't be back for it."

Starsky crossed the street with a casual glance up and down its length.

"What the hell was-"

"Apparently I'm in a bad mood." Starsky grumbled. "Dispatch gonna send somebody."

"Yeah, but not here. Captain Dobey said he'd be happy to pick her up the airport. They're gonna pick up a rental, bill it to you. We can return it after I get my car on Monday."

"Bill it to me? Why me?"

"You were already in a bad mood, I figured it couldn't hurt." Hutch said, as if that were an act of charity. "I'll pay half." He tacked onto the end.

"This is embarrassing." Starsky groaned walking back up his drive and turning to the stairs.

"It's a run of bad luck, Starsk, there's nothing embarrassing about it."

Starsky unlocked his hastily locked front door and went straight for his beer, taking a healthy swallow our two before he moved to the TV and switched it off.

"Your not embarrassed? That neither one of us has a working car. Or a working phone. That we're not on the job today because we can't _do_ the job without a car."

"Maybe it's preordained. Maybe we needed a break."

Starsky gave a disbelieving laugh that crashed against his teeth like a wave and sat down at the dinner table, poking his fork at a piece of pasta and eating it. That one piece told him he didn't have an appetite and he took his beer back out onto the porch.

Two chairs sat on the narrow ledge that jutted out toward the driveway, elevated by twin support posts. Starsky took the one closest to the railing and watched the night sky, some of the clouds looking darker than others. Promising rain.

Hutch joined him a minute later and they sat watching the city.

"You should take the rental. Take Luyu somewhere nice...enjoy your weekend."

"Suppose she came here to see you." Hutch said, heard Starsky's sarcastic laugh and said, "You can come with us, Starsk."

"I love Luyu to death. I don't want to snap at her and ruin everything. I mean...I just scared off a taxi driver. It's hard enough to get a cab in this neighborhood."

They were silent for a bit, enjoying the beer, enjoying the rare calm.

"I'll make you a deal." Hutch said finally. "You be ready to go Sunday evening, we'll go out to eat. Maybe hit a disco. Go bowling or something."

Starsky smirked. "Bowling?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Ok." Starsky said, his tone lighter. "I'll be ready Sunday night."

"Then Monday we'll have my car back, Sheriff Samara will pick up Luyu, we'll get the Torino up and running. Everything'll be fine."


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: For the uninitiated Luyu is a character of my creation that is introduced in the story of "Tehachapi", and continued in the story "The Bus" with a brief appearance in the story "Heroes".

* * *

Luyu's flight had arrived twenty minutes late, and she was surprised and a little disappointed to find Captain Dobey, and not Hutch waiting for her. After Dobey explained the circumstances Luyu's concern shifted from Hutch forgetting, to being grateful Hutch was still around.

When they arrived at Starsky's home, Dobey in his car leading the way and Luyu in the VW Rabbit they had rented, it was well after 9pm. The reunion took place at the base of Starsky's drive.

Starsky got a hug and a kiss and Hutch got a longer hug and a deeper kiss, and a second and third kiss, that made Starsky glad they'd already decided that Hutch and Luyu would spend the majority of the weekend alone.

The two needed the time and Starsky needed to not be around for it. While Hutch explained the plan to Luyu, Starsky gave Dobey an explanation for the strange calls he'd made to dispatch.

Dobey offered a facetious remark about Starsky not paying his phone bill. Starsky started to give him a snarky response, but cut himself off when he realized that it just might be the problem. Like the note he usually got from the Crane's, had he completely overlooked a phone bill? It was something he could deal with the following morning, he decided, seeing both Hutch and Luyu, and Captain Dobey, off before he made the final climb up his drive and into his house.

He put away the food that Hutch had made, still not hungry. Instead he took his last beer with him into the bathroom and showered, pulling the bandage from his head and deciding that the cut could use a little air overnight. By ten pm he was stretched out on the bed, in pajama bottoms, finally feeling clean and cool.

He remembered hearing the first roll of thunder, the patter of rain, then nothing as he drifted to sleep.

It might have been three or four am when he woke up. Something had brought him out of a deep nightmare that involved pushing the Torino around town, making the noise of the siren himself. Starsky pulled himself off the bed and padded out into the living room, noting the chain lock still in place, and the steady drum of rain on the roof.

Groggily Starsky worked his fingers over his scalp, through his hair and over the back of his neck as he padded to a window and looked out. Lightning skittered across the sky and thunder followed, and the combination of sounds brought a smirk to his face. Out of curiosity he went to the phone and tested it. Still dead.

Starsky flipped on a few lights, hunted through the pile of mail on his coffee table and eventually came up with two envelopes still sealed.

The first was the note from his neighbors. They were in Cancun and would be back Monday. The second was the phone bill. Unopened and two-weeks past due. They'd probably shut his phone off shortly after he'd left the house Friday at noon.

Starsky spent an hour blearily going through the rest of the mail that had been unintentionally ignored. His power bill was almost overdue, but he'd had that marked on his calendar. Of course his calendar was buried under the pile of bills, but such was the exciting life of a police detective.

Starsky snorted at himself, looked at the time and thought about coffee. He also thought about exercise. It was still raining, almost 5:30 am, and it'd been a week or so since he'd actually enjoyed going for a run. It'd been ages since he'd gone for a run in the rain.

Starsky pulled on his running shorts and shoes, a t-shirt that he and Hutch had been given as a gag by a cross-dressing mutual friend of theirs, and headed out into the dim light of the morning. The rain was cool and wet and clean and he covered two miles quickly, hardly having time to get bored. He'd have covered more but he was hungry and thinking about the bagels and coffee and the bag of bread-sticks Hutch had reminded him about.

By the time he had the coffee percolated, the rain had begun to dwindle down to a light mist. Starsky pulled on his favorite cardigan and walked his mail down to the box, the unpaid bills at the top of the stack. He put up the flag, walked back up his drive and sipped at his coffee, staring at the Torino, washed clean by the rain.

"You're too young, to be as old as you act." He told the car, then lifted the hood and studied the gutted inside. Before he'd left the night before Starsky had given Hutch the number for the supply company, and the names of each of the hoses he needed. Hutch had promised to call the order in first thing Saturday morning, but Starsky had the feeling he wouldn't remember. He could hardly blame his partner.

In the meantime there were other fixes he could make. Starsky unhooked the battery, knowing some of the work would be electrical, then pulled out the jack, fitted it under the frame and started jacking up the front driver side of his car until he could fit one of the steel ramps under the tire. He took extra care making sure the wheel was centered and the ramp sturdy before he lowered the weight of the car onto the ramp, and went to do the same for the other side.

He couldn't help the sigh at the sound of an uncertain voice coming from the bottom of the drive.

"Hello?"

Starsky stood up from the perpetual lean that working the handle of the jack required, and squinted at the twenty-something kid standing just off the street. It took him a second to recognize the young man that had been standing by the curb after Starsky had scared off the taxi the night before.

"Hey, I'm at the top of the drive. Come on up."

"Sorry to bother you. I was hoping I could use your phone." The kid called, his voice dropping in volume as he got closer.

Starsky was working the second ramp under the front passenger tire, and he laughed before he released the jack a few notches. "We got the same problem, kid. I haven't had a line out since yesterday afternoon." Starsky lay down on his side and eyed the ramp and wheel, releasing a few more notches before he shifted the ramp again. "Thought maybe I'd forgotten to pay a phone bill...guess the problem's bigger than that."

"Huh." The kid said, then, "Is this a Fairlane?"

Starsky sighed, let his head rest on the pavement for a minute in depressed defeat, then released the last few notches and watched the tire settle squarely on the ramp. "It's a Gran Torino." He said, getting up to his feet and working the jack until he could pull it out from under the frame. "I take it you're not much into cars."

The kid still stood behind the trunk, squinting at the car's body like it was a badly printed photo in a skin magazine. "No...l like looking at them though."

Starsky fitted the jack a third time under the frame near the rear passenger tire and started raising the car. "Well...if you don't mind...this car is shy, and I'm...sorta busy."

The kid caught on a second later and took his hand off the rear of the car, like he'd been caught fondling another man's wife. "Sorry...so...no phone huh?"

"No." Starsky said, focused on the repetitive effort required by the jack.

"Okay."

The kid was silent and Starsky figured at first that he'd walked away. A minute after he figured the kid to be gone Starsky started to feel bad about the way he'd treated him. What was it about the Torino being on the fritz that always turned him into a grouch?

Starsky turned, prepared to go make amends, figuring the kid couldn't have gone too far. He shouted and jumped, then dumped himself onto the driveway when he realized the kid was still there, standing silently by the trunk, watching him.

"Are you okay?" The kid asked.

Once he could hear past his heartbeat Starsky said, "I'm fine. You're real quiet, you know that?"

"Yes." The kid responded. He hadn't looked like an egghead the night before, but he sure seemed like one now, Starsky thought.

"Listen...normally I'm all for company and making friends with my neighbors but...I'm not in that great a mood today, I got all this work to do on my car...see what I'm sayin'?"

"Oh! Oh...yes, of course. I'm terribly sorry I just...I was wondering how I was going to call for a taxi, when I haven't got a phone." The kid's voice trailed off and he seemed to get lost once more in the quandry.

"Uh...you know maybe you could try another house? Or...you know..it's a two mile walk but there's a gas station out that way. They got a payphone. Hey uh...what's your name?"

"Beemer."

"Beemer?"

"Yes. My mother wanted it to be Beeman. Beeman Hughes Tarold the III, but the hospital typist broke a nail and hit the wrong letter and now I'm Beemer."

Starsky stared dumbfounded, took in a breath prepared to tell the kid how easy it was these days to get a court ordered name change, but that might've kept the kid there for another hour and Starsky didn't want that. "Beemer, nice to meet you, but I've got work. Two blocks that way…pay phone. K?"

"Ok." Beemer said, then turned toward the street and walked away. Starsky made sure he was gone before he went back to the jack, getting the last two tires up on the ramps in record time, comparatively.

He was still thinking about Beemer an hour later when he finished tightening the last flange around the brake lines. The more he thought about the way the kid spoke, and the struggle he had with thinking through his problem, the more he wondered if he really had been a college kid returning home.

Beemer seemed...delayed. Like the thoughts bounced around in his head longer than they had to for most, before settling down where he could put them to use. It reminded him of the kids that Terry had worked with, and that line of thought had him distracted for a good twenty minutes. He'd disappeared into his shed, hunting through the spare parts there, when he heard the heavy squeal and hiss of the brakes on an industrial size truck.

He stuck his head out, smirked at the logo of the parts company on the side of the truck and was heading down his drive, pulling his wallet from his back pocket when he spotted Beemer plodding up the road from the direction of the gas station.

He couldn't tell if the kid had been successful or not, but he looked tired and Starsky felt another pang of guilt for not having offered to go with him. He exchanged payment with the delivery driver, using up most of the rest of his cash on the cost of the parts and the expedience of the delivery. What he had left wouldn't pay for a round of bowling, let alone a meal. He'd have to get to the bank somehow before Sunday night, a near impossibility given the time of day. He hated ATMs but then what choice did he have?

"Hey Beemer, did you make it to that phone?" Starsky asked, collecting the myriad boxes into one pile to save a trip up the drive. Beemer watched the truck closely until it had driven away, checked both ends of the empty street, then crossed to where Starsky stood waiting.

"No, you see, I arrived and then I realized that I had forgotten change." Beemer told him, then turned and walked back across the street and into his house.

Starsky sighed, rested his forehead for a moment against the stack of boxes, then turned and went up the drive. He had one more visit from Beemer, the kid crossing the street to tell him that he had gotten change for the pay phone and was walking back. Starsky offered to go with him that time, but Beemer said, "No. I like to walk and look at cars, and perhaps I'll find someone with a nice car like yours."

"Ok, Beemer. Be careful." Starsky called, then Beemer was gone and the detective turned mechanic had his hands full refitting brand new hoses.

Putting the Torino back together was cathartic. Like working on a puzzle or building a treehouse, or so he imagined, having never built a treehouse. Three years ago he would have let Merle do it all accepting that he knew nothing about the inner workings of his favorite machine and never would.

But he'd stuck his nose in enough car magazines that he'd begun to learn the benefit of knowing about, and doing the small things. Doing it himself meant he could feel how snug the hoses were against the nozzles. He knew for a fact how much pressure he'd used, cinching the metal ties, tight enough to hold the hoses but not so tight as to speed up the natural wear and tear. He could feel the difference between the old hoses and the new, could trust that the new hoses would hold out if he could just figure out the coolant problem that all Torino's seemed to have.

To that end Starsky, after setting the back end of the car back onto the driveway, stared at the radiator for about ten minutes trying to reverse engineer the system in his mind. He was wondering if a coolant system from a different Ford model...one, say, that didn't heat up as fast, like...perhaps...Hutch's car...wondering if that coolant system couldn't be modified to fit into the Torino's sleeker front end. He'd started to mumble to himself, following lines and pipes and attachments, feeling the excitement of discovery overwhelm the weariness that being up since four am had left him with.

More than a few times he'd bruised his hips lurching against the frame in a rush to make a connection, or resolve a hunch. He was under the car with the workman light, staring at the bottom of the radiator when he realized how unstable the driver's side front tire had become. The rocking of the car had shifted the tire more than an inch off the ramp, just enough to potentially compromise the support struts.

He'd been hearing the ticking of metal under pressure and had been ignoring it. When he thought he caught the movement of the ramp out of the corner of his eye, Starsky froze, his chest heaving with short breaths. His hips were even with the front driver's side tire, his chest and stomach completely under the car. If he moved quickly he could make it out, grab the driver's side door and put the car in gear, stopping it from rolling. The fact that the wheels were moving, despite his certainty that Hutch had set the parking brake, meant he had something else to fix, but it was the least of his worries.

Starsky started to worm his way out from under the car, his cardigan bunching under his back annoyingly. The car stayed where it was, the ominous groaning of the ramps like a ticking time bomb until he could add the support of the rear ramps, wedging them up behind the rear tires. Starsky double checked that the parking brake was still on, then got under the front of the car to figure out where the ramps had gone wrong, but everything seemed fine.

Had it only been the noises that had made him think the wheels were moving? Was he just slowly losing his mind? Starsky stood again by the car, staring at it, shook a warning finger at it, then glanced up when he heard a distant, delighted laugh. Beemer was back.

Starsky found himself grateful to see the young man and waved, watching Beemer wave back then disappear into his house, apparently successful with his phone call. Starsky leaned on the hood and rocked the car a few times then stood back, waiting for the crap to hit the fan.

Nothing happened, the car settled, the weird creaking continued and Starsky shrugged then crawled back under the car. He was under the passenger side, in the same position he'd been in before when he realized that the creaking sound seemed louder. It occurred to him that the one thing he hadn't checked had been the integrity of the ramps themselves. He flipped the workman light and watched the beam play over the front left strut of the ramp nearest him, crimped like an accordion over a long streak of rust. Then the ramp collapsed and the taut wire that constituted the emergency brake snapped.

Starsky scrambled to get out of the way, but his sweater bunched under him again, just like the first time. The rolling front tire caught the fabric against the driveway and Starsky dropped the workman light, struggling to yank his arm free at the same time that he was tugging at the over-sized buttons. He got everything free of the wheel but his left arm.

The slow rolling tire caught him just below the armpit, pinching skin and muscle against the ground before rolling up over the bone. Starsky screamed and tried to stop the tire with his other arm, wrapping his hand around the wide tread and pushing in the opposite direction. All that did was make the pain worse and Starsky let the tire roll, waiting for the grinding weight of the car to pass over him completely. Then he heard the screech of the rear ramps against the drive.

The rear tires caught the dimpled, abrasive surface of the ramp and started to roll up it, before the ramp did what it was supposed to do and the car came to a halt. Just an inch or two more and Starsky would've been able to yank his arm free. He tried pushing against the tire, managed to get the car to roll back an inch, but couldn't free his arm. The moment he let the tire go it rolled back and he screamed again, not sure if the bone in his arm was broken, but absolutely sure it didn't matter.

It hurt, worse than a bruise, worse than a gunshot wound. It hurt because he could feel some of the circulation being cut off and the blood screaming in the lower part of his arm, throbbing with each heartbeat.

"Just a coupl'a inches. Come on baby." Starsky planted his feet against the concrete retaining wall that formed part of the narrow box at the top of his drive and pushed as hard as he could against the tire.

The ramp creaked behind him, the other ramp under the front driver's side gave a groan. Starsky pushed harder fighting with a long, gut-wrenching whine of pain, effort and desperation.

There was another bang and the ramp under the front driver's side gave up the ghost and snapped a support leg, the rest of the ramp catapulting out from under the car, flying sideways and careening off the concrete wall and into the pile of tools and boxes at the head of the drive.

The car's weight slammed down on the left side, and for a split second the pressure left his arm. Starsky yanked, got his arm free then felt the tire settle back to where it had been a minute before, trapping his sweater again, just below where the sleeve began.

Starsky lay panting for a few minutes, his left hand twitching, his right hand haphazardly going after the buttons. Once he had them undone he floundered on the concrete, getting his right side free of the cardigan before he carefully worked his shoulder, then his arm, then his wrist free of the left sleeve.

Starsky put some distance between himself and the car, getting his back propped against the retaining wall. Most of his arm was crimson. He hadn't been trapped for that long but the skin had still managed to turn the color of red wine. His fingers and hand were swollen, swelling around his watch band, his watch the next thing that he desperately fumbled to get off.

He couldn't get to the pinky ring fast enough. It wasn't going to come off without help and Starsky left it. There were too many things wrong with his upper arm. It was cold and hot at the same time, and it felt shattered. All the yanking might have dislocated the shoulder joint, making it feel like a sadistic giant had come along, tied a string around his left shoulder and played tether-ball.

Starsky's first attempt at getting to his feet failed miserably. His stomach was empty, and had been for most of the afternoon, yet he felt like he was going to throw up. The world insisted on spinning and without the cardigan he had started to shiver. Starsky leaned towards the trapped garment, tugging at it until the sleeve came apart at the seam. The Torino could have that sleeve, Starsky thought, and good riddance. He covered his busted arm and most of his torso with the bulk of the sweater and closed his eyes, exhausted.

The shivering made his shoulder hurt and the shoulder made his stomach churn. He just needed a minute, he told himself. Just a minute to get it together, then he could stand up, open the passenger door and use the radio-

He'd disconnected the battery. He'd have to reconnect the battery leads, then use the radio to call an ambulance. That was the plan, he told himself.

It occurred to him a second later, how important it would be that he not pass out.

Then he passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

Warning: Adult situation ahead, and my first time writing a love-making scene. It just kinda happened, I swear.

* * *

Luyu slid her fingers under a lock of blond hair, brushed her nails across a perpetually sunburned forehead, then down well-defined cheekbones. She let her fingers pass over expressive lips, thankfully free of hair and down under his chin. A quiet moment like this was rare and she enjoyed it, unabashedly studying the man she lay on top of. She traced a few scars over his shoulders, and down his arms, recognizing some of them because she'd been the one to treat them. Others she knew from previous examinations, both professional and intimate.

She found her way to his abdomen, and a double layer of scars in almost the same exact spot. Twice she'd found herself caring for Hutch after he'd taken a bullet to the side. The same side. The second bullet had caused her some concern with the duplicity of scar tissue that would develop over time. But here he was, his healthy body only part of the attraction, but definitely an enjoyable part.

Hutch brought her lips to his, closing his arms around her back under the sheet shielding them from the cool that Saturday's late afternoon rain storm had brought. She loved where his bed was. She loved the green that surrounded his home and the hands that cared as lovingly for the growing things, as they did for her. She loved that it hadn't taken the colloquial "woman's touch" for Hutch to be a grown man with a clean home and a love for making things thrive.

Hutch's mouth was moving, straying, finding new places that made her gasp and wriggle and yearn. She was alive, instantly, parts of her that had long lay dormant, were burgeoning under his touch and she found him under the sheet, bringing their bodies together for the second or third or fourth time that day.

She'd lost track. She was perfectly content with that. She lost herself in his smell and the way his body moved, the little noises he couldn't stop himself from making when she moved just the right way.

She loved it when he couldn't keep his eyes closed, and the brilliant, clear blue met her brown. Her fingers were in his hair again, her lips against his, their flesh meeting. Her long black hair spilled over her shoulders, shielding their faces as they built together.

She couldn't breathe anymore, driven by his eagerness, hypersensitive to every brush of her skin against his until they ended together. It wasn't how she'd thought she would spend her first day in Hutch's home, but it was everything she'd needed.

As they lay panting, Luyu let her forehead rest against the pillow, her nose buried against Hutch's neck, her hand against his other cheek. She felt his hands move, felt his face turn, his lips against her cheekbone. She turned her head and met his eyes, astonished at the range of emotions flooding them.

Relief, fear, excitement, delight, passion, need, contentment, and a thousand more. She'd seen the look before. Felt it before from Hutch. She'd first met him when he was vulnerable, and had become vulnerable for him, when he needed to reconnect with his blood brother. That vulnerability had linked her heart to his. A link that allowed them to always be what they were in that moment, even when they were miles away from each other.

"I missed you." Hutch said, still breathing deep, sounding surprised and yet certain of the words and the sentiment behind it.

Luyu smiled a little then kissed him. "I'm glad to be missed." She said, pulling him tight against her. They fell asleep together that way, souls and bodies wound tightly together, for the moment at peace.

* * *

It was raining. The sky was dumping a second fury of water on his head, and Starsky recalled, as he began to come around, that he had enjoyed the feeling that morning. It wasn't enjoyable anymore. The cardigan was soaking wet, the cold probably helping to reduce the swelling, but also increasing how violently his body was shivering.

Starsky stared at the Torino, the torn cardigan sleeve still stuck under the front tire, the hood still up…

The hood was up. That meant the engine, the hoses...and the battery, were all soaking wet. The battery that he needed to connect to get the radio to work. The battery that he couldn't connect without electrocuting himself in the downpour.

He had to get up. He had to move, either toward his house or away from it. The driveway wasn't the place to convalesce or to get help.

Starsky leaned forward until he could grab the handle of the passenger door, closed the fingers of his right hand around it, then pushed up with his feet and pulled with his arm. He got up in a crouch, shifted his feet then stood, leaning hard against the side of the car. Just that small amount of movement had awakened his pulse and sent a steady drumbeat of pains shooting through his arm. His back was stiff from leaning over the Torino for hours, then sitting against the retaining wall for more.

Starksy filled his lungs with air a few times then pushed away from the Torino and braced himself against the retaining wall, trying to make his legs work better, trying to cover the ground faster. He got up the first six steps before the retaining wall disappeared and there was nothing but sidewalk for ten feet. Starsky put his head down, pulled his arm tighter against his body then took one drunken step, then another, holding on until there was railing to cling to again.

He wasn't bleeding, he told himself, taking a few steps up before he had to rest. It was just a bruise, maybe a broken bone, probably a dislocated joint. Why was he so dizzy? Why was he so weak? It didn't make sense based on what he'd dealt with before, and he told himself, that if it didn't make sense to him, it could not possibly be.

He shouldn't have been dizzy, therefore he wasn't, and Starsky pulled himself up another three steps. Then there was the tiredness, the weakness in his legs, the malaise that was making it hard to breathe and think. Sure his arm might have been one massive bruise, but that was no reason to pass out in his driveway, or feel like the stairs were tall enough that climbing them could give him the bends. It was ridiculous, the brunet reasoned, and made six steps this time.

The nausea hit him without warning and he went to his knees on the next step, clung hard to the banister with his right hand and threw up in the rain. His stomach wouldn't give him a break, robbing him of breath and urging him to lose more salt and hydration than he could afford. All the things he'd reasoned he shouldn't be feeling, hit him like a freight train a second later and he sagged, ready to pass out.

It was the image of Hutch and Luyu finding him there on Sunday evening, that pushed him back to his feet. Kneeling on the stairs, face first in a puddle of his own vomit, a sad, sorry bruised mess. Embarrassing, Starsky thought. And inconsiderate, really.

He pulled himself up, hard breaths forcing their way through clenched teeth. He made his legs move and took the stairs without pause, ignoring the need to rest, ignoring the need to vomit, ignoring the need to feel. He could feel when he was dead, he told himself, then was distracted by the absurdity of his own thoughts. The distraction got him into the apartment where he braced himself against a wall and loosened the soaking wet jogging shorts, letting them fall. His undershorts came next, then the socks and shoes. The shirt was the hardest. It was wet and he was wet and his shoulder had stiffened.

Starsky got his right arm free of the shirt, pulled it over his head then made it to the toilet before a second bought of nausea took over. When he could control his stomach again, the wounded man climbed into the tub, ran the hot and cold tap and sat, propping himself up, letting the tub fill, waiting for the warm water to make the shivering go away.

Not certain it ever would.

* * *

When they finally left the bedroom it was to seclude themselves in the bathroom. The shower turned into another adventure of exploration that ended with the two wrapped in towels, curled on the couch.

Slowly their silent reunion became an out-loud conversation. Luyu brought Hutch up to speed on her schooling, her residency at Flagstaff Memorial in the mountains of Arizona, serving as a physician, though she was taking classes for a psychology degree.

"Has it been hot out there?"

"In the mountains? Sometimes. When the sky is clear it's like an oven, but there is no humidity. Just pure, perfect heat. As soon as a cloud rolls by, the heat is gone and you're shivering."

"What do you do for fun?"

Luyu smiled, then admitted. "I've made a friend. We got out sometimes, into the mountains, on weekends. He likes my company and I like his spirit."

Luyu could feel Hutch's reservations before they appeared on his face, and long before he voiced them and she smiled. It wasn't in her nature to torture, and she found little joy in making a man jealous. Still...it confirmed something for her, and for that she was grateful. "His name is Rex. He's a border collie. He was my roommate's before she married and moved out."

Hutch continued to read her eyes for a moment then smiled softly. "Sounds like I need to be jealous of Rex." He said.

"No...Rex isn't any good in bed. He hogs the covers."

That got a chuckle out of him and Luyu beamed.

"So you and Rex, you go out into the mountains alone on weekends?"

"There are so many people in Flagstaff it's hard to ever be alone in those mountains." Luyu said, her fingers playing with the hair that hung past Hutch's ears. "But it's like home. Like Tehachapi."

Hutch nodded, his eyes dancing, watching her as she traveled back.

"Even with the way the town changed when the prison was built, Tehachapi still maintains a... a culture of the old ways. Of tradition and respect. Preservation. Honor."

"And you find that in the mountains?"

"Mountains have hearts. Souls. They can feel the earth changing at their feet, but they keep their heads above it all. Unchanged."

Hutch was smiling, and after a moment Luyu smiled too. The mysticism of her childhood had been something she'd strayed deliberately away from, then returned to, the way the black sheep of a family yearned to remember family traditions they once shunned. She still caught herself feeling silly, even while she expressed an earnest understanding of what her father and grandfather and great grandfather had dedicated their lives to.

It was a journey, and not one she had expected to share with a blond, Nordic-type police detective from Minnesota.

"What are you thinking about?" Hutch asked.

Luyu took in a breath that filled her with the scent of Hutch, and the soap from the shower, and the faint musk of their love making. It was a heady mix that she stored away in the back of her mind for those times when she was desperately lonely, but circumstances kept them apart.

Then her stomach growled. Both she and Hutch heard it and he gave her a surprised look, then snorted at the blush that flooded Luyu's cheeks.

"Do you want breakfast?" Hutch asked, grinning broadly, and barely controlling a giggle.

She pursed her lips and slapped his bare shoulder for making fun of her, then kissed him soundly and clutched her towel chastely around her before she got up from the couch. Hutch watched her pad into the bedroom without a word, fishing for clothes in her overnight bag. He followed her example, getting to his feet, surprised at how sore he felt, and not entirely sure that it was all because of the bad week he and Starsky had had.

The thought of his partner reminded him of a few things that Luyu's proximity had driven from his mind.

Despite the intimacy of the morning he found himself shyly giving Luyu her privacy until she had dressed. Then he took over the bedroom and did the same.

He came back out into the kitchen to find a pot of coffee already brewing on the stove and the raven haired, Native American doctor hunting through his fridge. Before he could get there she'd found the eggs, spinach, tomatoes and cheese, piling each ingredient on the counter.

Hutch went to his phone and dialed Starsky's number, watching Luyu as she tied back her hair, hunted for a fry pan, and started breakfast in his kitchen as if she'd lived there all her life.

* * *

His phone was ringing. The sound came to him and he jerked awake, gasping for air and listening to the water splashing over the floor. The tub was overflowing, the movement of his body upsetting more of the water, and Starsky thrust his right hand out, shutting off each of the taps.

Ringing. Why was there ringing?

Starsky looked to his left shoulder and the pain came to him, hidden somehow until he'd seen the full damage the Torino's weight had done. There was a dent in his shoulder where no dent should be, and a corresponding swell, where no swell should be. The mountain/valley combination told him his shoulder was dislocated. Below it red, purple, black and brown were competing for canvas space above and below his bicep. The center of the work was speckled and glossy, red and white.

Below the break his arm was closer to the normal color. The swelling in his hand had gone down and Starsky pulled his pinky ring off, then pulled the plug in the drain, carefully getting himself propped on the edge of the tub. His head was throbbing now but the shivering and the nausea were gone, or at least distant enough, he could ignore them.

The tub continued to drain and Starsky planted his feet on the soaked rug, pushed himself to his feet and caught hold of his robe, hanging from the hook on the bathroom door. He got his right arm into the sleeve, slowly pulled the robe over his left arm and tied it closed with his right hand. It wasn't about modesty, it was about heat conservation.

Teeth set against the jolts that every step gave him Starsky went to his front door, still standing open. He shut it, cutting off the distant roar of the rain, then looked to the phone. The phone that hadn't been working before but was apparently working now.

It kept ringing. Starsky focused on the goal, placed his bare feet carefully and crossed the distance to the Bakelite pyramid like a drunkard in a Charlie Chaplin film. He made it, but he took too long. The ringing stopped before he could get there and Starsky grabbed the whole phone before he stumbled to the couch and collapsed into it.

He was beyond reasoning himself into action. Too tired. Too much hurt. The softness of the couch cushions and the pull towards sleep were too powerful of incentives for him to care. Maybe it would be better when he woke. Maybe a short nap would give him energy. Maybe…

Maybe the phone would ring again. The room was darker than he remembered, and he felt warmer than he'd felt all day. In fact he was sweating. The sweat was making his arm burn and itch at the same time and he wanted to pull the robe off to kill the suffocating heat, but he couldn't. The phone was ringing at him, vibrating against his chest, demanding attention.

Starsky wanted to sleep. That was all. Just sleep so that he could escape the pain and the heat, and be better when he woke up next.

He picked up the phone and told the person on the other end that he was tired.

The other end called him a sleepy head and told him something about getting a phone bill paid finally.

Starsky got out a confused grunt that was apparently funny to the voice on other end, then was asked a question that he only got the first part of. He passed out before the important part.

* * *

Starsky had fallen asleep on him. The call before breakfast had gone unanswered and Hutch had figured it made sense. Starsky was planning on working on the Torino. But it was raining, a lot, and the second call should have been picked up sooner.

Hutch's brow had creased, his ear pressed hard against the receiver, certain he heard heavy breathing, maybe even snoring. The breaths weren't even, but they were all he was getting out of his partner.

"Starsk?"

Nothing. But for the echo of a clap of thunder that was repeated outside his own apartment, there was nothing on Starsky's end of the line but one exhausted brunet.

"Is his phone working?" Luyu asked from the table where she stood cleaning up the last of the dishes.

"His phone's working." Hutch muttered. "He's not."

He was just sleeping, Hutch told himself. Nothing was wrong. He was just exhausted. The past week had been harder than most. But Hutch couldn't pull his hand away from the phone.

Luyu watched him quietly. She felt the pull of Hutch's concern then nodded and said, "Call him again."

Hutch was already dialing. They both heard the busy signal and Luyu left the dishes on the table, going for her coat and the keys to the Rabbit. Hutch grabbed his own coat, the first aid kit he kept in his bathroom and an umbrella.


	5. Chapter 5

Someone was in his house. Beyond the fever, beyond the throbbing in his shoulder, beyond the quaking of his body, Starsky could feel the presence of a stranger in his living room and it was keeping him awake.

He was pretty sure there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't even seem to get his voice to work. Two attempts at forming the words "who's there" failed in hoarse, staccato groans.

Then a blanket appeared.

The one from his bed.

It floated above him, looming in such a way that he was convinced he was about to be suffocated by it. Then it settled over his legs, was tucked up under his chin and his burning body took over, filling the new, down cocoon with heat that stilled the shaking and flooded his head and jaw with pain.

There was no way to win, Starsky thought, and he remembered Hutch's explanation for the past week. "R-run. Bad. Luck." He said, laughing at it in his head, his body translating it by providing a half-grin for two seconds. Then the pain was back.

Someone had his arm and was trying to rip it off. No...not off, just up. The blanket had moved and some of his heat had escaped, but the cold air was not as disturbing as the urgent need the stranger had to get his arm out of the robe and into the open. What was there to see that Starsky had not already seen? He already knew his arm was messed up, he didn't need anybody's help with that.

Why wasn't the stranger using the phone? Calling the ambulance? Getting the hospital.

The phone had been on his chest, or so he thought, but it wasn't there now. Only the blanket and the weight of his arm, now out where the cool air could wake up deadened nerve endings under the skin.

Then, just as suddenly as the heat had been a welcome arrival, it became an unwanted part of his nightmare. It was suffocating and warping the twisted, half-dream images in Starsky's head. Faces were stretching and bloating. The Torino was swimming in and out of his vision, the front end grotesquely bigger than the back for only a second before the images flip-flopped and the back end was bigger.

Starsky tried to communicate the problem. "Hot." Too much heat. The blanket had to go. The rain was now a welcome thought.

"Sick." Whatever or whoever was controlling his dreams was a sick, twisted, macabre little bugger that needed to be squashed, and fast.

"Hutch." That was the answer, and always had been in the past. He needed the blintz, he needed the level headed partner that had kept him grounded for all these years. Hutch had to know that he was in trouble. Hutch had to know that Starsky was losing his mind with the weird kaleidoscope of pictures.

Something cold and wet hit his forehead, instant, heavenly relief that brought him a little clarity. Then there was more cold. Colder cold, against the bruises and the break in his arm. It was softened by a towel, but still too hard. Too painful. Starsky's back arched and he cried out and the hard cold disappeared.

The blanket was tugged away, then resettled over his arm. The cold on his forehead slipped off, he heard water that sounded like the tub was still overflowing, then felt the cold return. It slid over his forehead, down his cheeks and over the part of his neck and chest that the blanket hadn't yet covered.

The stranger finally spoke, and Starsky realized it wasn't a stranger after all.

"Your arm is broken. And probably dislocated. And some of the muscles detached. Did your car attack you?"

* * *

The rain was coming down almost too hard for the Rabbit's windshield wipers. It had slowed traffic, and therefore slowed Hutch and Luyu. The longer he was stuck behind the white pick-up truck the more antsy Hutch got.

Luyu had been quiet beside him, aware of Hutch's growing agitation and feeling it herself by proxy.

"How did he sound?" Luyu asked quietly.

"Out of it." Hutch replied, glancing again in the side mirror, thinking about pulling a "Teal Mustang" and very aware that he wouldn't have the backing of a siren or a police radio if he did. "Groggy. His breathing was funny."

Luyu was trying to diagnose in her head, aware that it was a dangerous practice, but also very familiar with the medical history of both partners. "The cut on his head, the one he had last night. Could it have become infected?"

The truck in front of them finally moved a few feet and Hutch checked his rearview mirror again, rolling forward. "Maybe. It wasn't that deep."

Hutch pushed back in the seat and took a deep breath, trying to control the adrenaline that was feeding his heart rate and the worry. He was trying to tell himself that he was overreacting but the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach wouldn't let up.

"How much farther to Dave's place?"

"On the highway it's usually about five minutes. On the surface streets it'd take fifteen."

"And in the first rainstorm this part of California has seen in…"

"Yeah…" Hutch muttered, checked his rearview mirror again then smirked. Starsky would never believe it, not in a million years, but the little Teal Mustang that had killed the Torino was about to save the day.

The top was up, but the same kid was behind the wheel. Hutch waited for them to blow past, splashing through the puddles on the berm, then told Luyu to hang on, and jerked the Rabbit over onto the berm after them, stepping on the gas. It only took them a mile to blow past a cruiser willing to give chase.

If Starsky was fine and just sleeping there'd be a lot to explain but if Hutch was right, having a cop on his tail was the next best thing to having an emergency radio in the Rabbit. Hutch glanced to Luyu to make sure her seatbelt was fastened, then drove the VW like he'd been born to it.

* * *

"Beem.."

"Yes, Sir. I broke into your home and I'm sorry for that. But you see your screaming was very loud and it disturbed my nap. And normally there isn't screaming on the street so I came over. And your sweater, it was torn. And there was…" Beemer stopped, and swallowed, paling before he could describe the mess Starsky vaguely remembered leaving on the steps.

"So you see...I.."

"S'ok." Starsky managed, not sure he could focus on Beemer's ramblings, and keep the weird images at bay, plus deal with the headache and the pain and the heat. "Cool. S'good."

"Cool?"

Starsky fished his good hand out from under the blanket and mimed the cloth going over his forehead. Beemer got it on the second pass and Starsky heard the blessed sound of water being wrung out of wash cloth, then the flash of cold and the headache died a little.

* * *

They'd almost made it to the exit when the Mustang decided to give in. Once bitten, twice shy, Hutch thought, swerving around the puddle that was almost bigger than the Rabbit, then digging into the soft ground on the berm, trying to get back onto the asphalt before the exit.

Luyu's hands had gone out, bracing against the door as she stared at the side mirror. "Why isn't he following us?"

"The cruiser?"

"Yeah. He turned. He went after the Mustang."

"The Mustang has priors. We're in a rental." Hutch said, gritting his teeth against the pull of the narrow wheel base. "The cop in that cruiser is gonna get a better bust out of a guy with a record less than a day old, than a rental car full of ballsy out-of-towners."

"How do you know that?"

"Starsky killed the Torino trying to chase that Mustang. That kid probably got his first speeding ticket of the summer, yesterday afternoon."

* * *

The heat was too hot. It was taking Hutch too long. He'd talked to Hutch. He knew Hutch had called. He might have been able to explain to Hutch that he was hurt. Or had that been part of the dream. Maybe _Hutch_ had said it to _him_.

He was cold again. His face was drenched and his chest was like ice, and the blanket wasn't enough anymore. He was shaking and the tremors were making his arm hurt. He'd tried to brace it, hold it still, from under the blanket but it wasn't working.

"Mister...uh sir. Are you cold now? I can...uh. Hold on, please sir." Beemer said, panicking as he scrambeled off his knees and tried to find another blanket. Instead he found towels. Lots of them that he snapped open and spread as evenly as he could over the quivering man until there as nothing but a sweat bathed, pale face visible.

"Beem...Beemer."

"Yes, Mister...yes. Sir, I can't find anymore-"

"S'ok. Phone. Call...police."

"Oh!" Beemer sighed, as if that one word had been the final part of the puzzle. "Yes. Of course. The police. Yes. The number. I know it. I memorized it." Beemer promised, then started patting his pockets.

"Call..p'lice."

"I will. I will, sir." Beemer promised, then soaked the wash cloth one last time, wrung it out and put it over Starsky's brow.

Then Beemer ran out the door and down the street, headed for the payphone at the gas station, two miles away.

Starsky was pretty sure this was what purgatory felt like. Even though he didn't believe in purgatory, and his mother would slap him for saying such a thing. But he had to be in some twisted, sadistic limbo between heaven and hell.

Starsky laughed until he was crying because it hurt too much. Then he waited for the heat to come back, or Beemer, whichever was running faster.

* * *

They hit the exit ramp, cruised through an intersection then headed up past a gas station and the two mile stretch of road that would lead to Starsky's house.

The rain had guaranteed that hardly anyone would be out on the street but a half mile from Starsky's place they passed a kid walking at a stiff pace, head down against the downpour, two coins clutched in his fingers.

It was a bizarre sight, but Hutch ignored it. He cut speed as hard as he could turning into Starsky's driveway, knowing the Torino would be at the top, and the Rabbit might just be light enough to ramp a little on the way up.

Even knowing the tomato would be there Hutch had to cut the brakes hard when he realized that the steel ramps Starsky used to lift the car off the ground were probably the only thing keeping the Torino from rolling into the street.

Hutch sat panting in the behind the wheel, staring at what he could see from there, then eased the Rabbit back down the drive and parked at the curb.

They got out together, rushing up the drive. Hutch spotted the open hood first and went to close it, catching that the battery had been unhooked, which meant that Starsky's radio wasn't an option. He'd rounded the front of the car, meeting Luyu at the steps, but stopped at the sight of the soaked and piled cardigan. One of the sleeves was detached and still trapped under the front tire of the car.

There were very few options as to how it might have gotten that way. Hutch tore up the stairs, stepped over the patch of vomit, rushed through the open door and started flipping lights on. He caught the pile of sodden clothes by the bathroom door, the inch of water on the bathroom floor, the pillows scattered across Starsky's bed, then the pile of towels on the couch.

The towels moved, moaned, then said his name.

"Starsky." Hutch navigated the coffee table, the stewing pot filled with tap water and the bag of frozen peas discarded on the floor. He felt for Starsky's legs in the pile then carefully shifted them to the side, sitting on the couch. He was gently peeling back layers, terrified of what he would find, when Starsky's right hand popped out from under the pile and latched onto him.

"Hutch...Hutch!?"

"I'm here, Starsk. I'm here. I got ya. It's okay." Hutch murmured, keeping up a constant dialogue until his partner's eyes had opened. Hutch pressed his palm against Starsky's face, winced at the heat and looked up frantically to find Luyu right in front of him.

She'd washed her hands and donned gloves and stood ready to move in.

"He's burning up."

"Keep pulling the towels away." Luyu encouraged, pressing the back of her gloved hand against Starsky's forehead. A second later she caught her first glimpse of the bruising and a hard breath came out of her nose. She swallowed hard and said, "Go ahead and make the call. I'll take care of his arm. You take care of the compress."

She and Hutch carefully switched places and she began to access the injury from the mild swelling at the tips of Starsky's fingers to the unnatural divot at the top of his shoulder.

She heard the phone receiver hit the body of the phone prematurely and looked up to see Hutch dialing a second time.

"There's no dial tone." Hutch said, lifting the phone to make sure the line was still attached, then following the cord to the wall. The line should've worked. He knew he'd reached Starsky. He knew the call had gone through earlier in the day. Why not now? Why when they needed it most?

Hutch thought about the pay phone two miles down the road, but what good would it do to drive down to the pay phone only to find it was dead too. Or to find that it was working but the rest of the system wasn't.

It was an excuse, and one that he accepted as valid, simply because he wasn't going to leave his partner's side. Hutch went to his knees, and lifted the cloth, wetting it and wiping the sweat away.

Starsky responded immediately with his name, then something that sounded like "beem" and "pay". Whatever he was going for was cut off when Luyu's probe hit the broken bone and Starsky writhed away from the pain.

"Take it easy. Come on, Starsky, it's gonna hurt, but it's _gotta_ hurt. Take it easy, pal."

Luyu had taken her hands away, waiting for Starsky to calm down, certain there was a break, certain there was a dislocation, but not certain about the cause of the fever. She started lifting the towels in chaste sections, searching Starsky's skin for an abrasion, a cut, a knick. Anything at all that could have possibly festered and caused a low level infection. She'd ruled out everything but his back before she said, "Ken, lift him up."

Hutch stared at her confused for only a second before he gently supported Starsky's neck with one hand and the spot between his shoulder blades, with the other. He lifted his partner away from the couch long enough for Luyu to run her hands expertly over the contours of his back.

Starsky flinched right when Luyu's hand stopped. She felt along an inch and a half long hardened ridge in what should have been smooth muscle, and looked to Hutch.

"How did that happen? The head injury? Here...on his right side." Luyu stood and helped Hutch guide Starsky onto his right side, toward the back of the couch, shifting the towels so that he was mostly still covered.

"A fence exploded. Some kids were setting off firecrackers."

Luyu blew air through her nose, frustrated for a multitude of reasons, then sat on the couch and supported Starsky's spine briefly so that Hutch could see what she had found. A long, thin strip of metal was embedded in Starsky's back, the length of it easily visible just under the skin. Hutch could make out what might have once been the head of an old nail.

"How long ago?"

"Uh...um…" Hutch squeezed his eyes shut hard, struggling to remember that this was Saturday, the day before had been Friday, the day before that. "Thursday. Afternoon."

"Ok." Luyu said, a sigh in her voice. She nodded, and wiped nose with the ungloved back of her wrist then nodded again, and gritted her teeth. The tears appeared but they didn't fall. She reigned it back in and said, "The hard part happens at 72 hours and we're at 48. But he's...he's got to get to a hospital right away. What about...what about a tetanus shot?"

"Tetanus?" Hutch asked, his eyebrows disappearing into his hair.

Luyu nodded. "The fever, the tremors. Was he complaining about a headache before this?"

"Oh no.." Hutch breathed.

"Comparatively, this is a mild infection and it's not even fully developed. Has he had a tetanus shot in the past year?"

"I…" Hutch shook his head. The number of times they'd both been hospitalized or treated, it was a wonder there was a shot out there they _hadn't_ been given.

"We need an ambulance." Luyu said again, knowing Hutch wouldn't want to leave, but knowing just as well that he had to.

Hutch nodded. "Ok." He said, then nodded again. He had just pushed to his feet and spun toward the door when the ambulance's siren pierced the air a block away.

Hutch turned back to Luyu and his partner, his jaw slack, stunned at the sound, but not about to waste the miracle. He knelt by the couch, uncovering his partner and doing what he could to secure the robe and the blanket. "I'll get him down to the road. Grab his wallet from the dresser in the bedroom."

Luyu nodded, stumbling to her feet before she ran into the bedroom. Hutch gathered his partner into his arms and started toward the door. He got to the threshold, felt a wave of deja vu and shouted, "Grab some jeans!" Then he was out the door and down the stairs, meeting the ambulance at the bottom of the drive.


	6. Chapter 6

Hutch stayed with him in the ambulance, right at his head where the EMTs needed the least access. They gave him a frozen kitchen sponge wrapped in plastic, and then in a towel and he kept Starsky's head cool, kept constant assurances in his ears and answered the EMTs questions the best he could. Luyu followed in the Rabbit up until she noticed the young man for the second time.

He was standing at the edge of the parking lot of the gas station, shivering in the rain, watching the ambulance go by like he was invested in its passage. She didn't know Bay City, or she would have pulled over. She didn't know the city well enough to know which hospital they were taking Starsky to, or even how to get there, but she promised herself she would talk to Hutch, or the hospital, or somebody once they got there.

Her heart and her head, and the psychology degree she felt more and more right about getting, were telling her the kid was important.

On the way to the hospital she memorized as many street signs as she could, making up a mnemonic device to remember them like she did in school, singing it to herself over and over again like a prayer. She stayed in the Rabbit when the ambulance stopped under the ER awning and rolled the passenger window down, shouting Hutch's name until he came over.

"The kid...the one at the gas station…" She started, then remembered that he'd been in the ambulance and wouldn't have seen him. "I'll be back. It's important." She said, pleading with him with her eyes, hoping he'd understand.

It took him a minute but Hutch nodded, grabbed her hand and squeezed it, before he turned to follow his partner into the hospital. Luyu took the Rabbit around the ambulance, her free hand putting the bag of Starsky's spare clothes into the backseat, running over the street lyrics again, only backward this time.

* * *

The nail was the first priority and they got Starsky into an exam room, under a powerful light and into the scrubbed and gloved hands of Dr. Lewis. He asked the same questions Luyu had. When had the nail hit Starsky? Why hadn't it been removed? When had they begun to notice the symptoms?

Dr. Lewis got angrier the more times Hutch answered with a noncommittal shrug. It launched the guilt Hutch already felt farther into the stratosphere of personal failings, and left him convinced that he'd killed his brother just as surely as if he'd driven the nail in himself. It was a fleeting feeling of failed responsibility that hung in the back of his mind, behind the forced hope, the urgency, the confusion and the knowledge that he couldn't leave Starsky. No matter how guilty he felt, he had to be there.

The ER surgeon made a quick incision, the nurses and orderlies propping Starsky's body on its side for the procedure. They removed the nail, cleaning and sanitizing the wound so many times that, even sedated, Starsky was convulsing against the hold the orderlies had on him.

They gave him a shot to counteract the bacteria growing in his blood, then he was on his way to x-ray, Hutch at the head of the bed for the transport, then standing against the wall outside the room, staring at the ground and wondering how he missed the nail.

They'd never been to the hospital...their treatment had been from the back of an ambulance. They'd been tired and hot and more than happy to skip the full rigamarole for once. Starsky had been a little stiff, complaining once or twice about the muscles in his back hurting.

Had Starsky not even known? How was it possible to have a piece of metal in your back and not even know it?

The gurney came out of X-Ray without warning and Hutch tagged along with it until Dr. Lewis stepped away to prepare for surgery and slammed face first into Hutch's taller frame. Dr. Lewis's temper flared quickly and he shoved Hutch into the wall then demanded to know why he was lurking where he could do no good?

Hutch let it happen, almost needing it to happen, and stayed where he was, a target for Dr. Lewis who had paced away, then came back.

"Do you think you can tell me how his arm got broken...then dislocated?" Lewis demanded.

The image of the cardigan sleeve still trapped under the car flashed into Hutch's brain, burned against his retinas for all time. "He was working on his car." Hutch explained, his voice soft and low. "It might'a rolled, or.."

"What?" Lewis demanded, leaning in, like a small dog on a big leash, intimidating the St. Bernard on the other side of the fence.

"His car rolled over him." Hutch barked, reluctantly.

Dr. Lewis nodded, like Hutch had just proved a point and dug a deeper grave in the process. "I'll bet he was alone at the time."

Hutch pinched his face closed, his head suddenly throbbing, and said nothing.

"You and you're partner." Lewis said and Hutch suddenly realized why the doctor had seemed familiar. It had been a while, almost a year. "You and you're partner are gonna kill yourselves given enough rope, and I look forward to being there when it happens."

Hutch moved away from where he'd slouched against the wall and the shift in height difference forced Dr. Lewis back. Hutch glared at the finger that was practically up his nose until it disappeared then focused his anger like a laser. "Is that a threat, Dr. Lewis? Are you threatening my partner?"

Dr. Lewis managed not to stammer, but he did it by clamping his mouth shut, his body shaking instead. Still, he maintained eye contact, a considerably brave move given how angry Hutch was.

"You want to tell me why you're still standing in this hallway, sticking a finger up my nose when you should be scrubbing up?" Dr. Lewis was still backing away, still held in Hutch's gaze, aware that the opposite wall of the hallway was coming up fast and not entirely sure the tall blond would stop before he hit it.

"If my partner...loses so much as a fingernail because you stood out here trying to square a year-old vendetta instead of preparing for the surgery that _will_ save his life and _will_ save his arm…" Hutch didn't finish the sentence. He wanted to, but the anger flooding through him gave him too many options that would only come back to haunt him later.

The fact was, every fiber of his being wanted to demand that Dr. Lewis be taken off his partner's case and another trauma surgeon handle the surgery. But that would have taken more time than Dr. Lewis had wasted and behind the panic and the fear, Hutch knew Starsky was running very low on time.

Dr. Lewis had wormed his way out from between Hutch and the wall and disappeared down the hallway. Hutch found himself staring at the yellow paint, ready to drive his fist through the plaster.

He slowly remembered that there were people he needed to call. People that needed to know that Starsky was in the hospital, headed for surgery, badly injured. The past half-hour was catching up with him. They'd left Starsky's house unlocked, and Luyu had disappeared on an errand that she'd convinced him, with a single look, was vital.

Hutch found the nurse's station on that floor, dug his badge out of his pocket and asked if he could use the phone. The lady there was older. In her fifties with bags under her eyes that promised her career had been long and hard. Hutch was wondering why she did it, even as she placed the phone on the counter for him to use and gently patted his arm before walking away to give him privacy.

His first call was to Dobey.

"I don't know, Captain. He was working on the Torino...it must have slipped from the ramps. His phone was dead, and he...I...its my fault, Cap. I should have stayed with him."

"Is he gonna be alright?"

"I don't know. He's going into surgery now."

"Keep me posted."

I don't know. It's my fault. I don't know what I was thinking and it's my fault I left him to do a job that I knew was too dangerous to do alone.

I don't know why I let your son get trapped under his own car, but it's my fault that he's here. It's my fault that it happened.

Hutch finished the the second phone call and placed the phone back down on the desk where it had come from. He started to ask the nurse a question then felt his throat close and had clear it several times, "Do you know which OR they took him to? My partner? Sergeant Dave Starsky?"

"Was Dr. Lewis attending?"

There were many things Dr. Lewis had been doing. Attending wasn't one of them, but Hutch nodded.

"OR Three on the second level. There's a waiting room outside it."

"I...I know...know it well." Hutch said with a faint smile. He thanked the nurse and walked away, passing the elevator and taking the stairs. There was a hum of activity coming from the other side of the OR doors, when he passed them, that promised surgery had already begun. Hutch went to the waiting room, standing in the doorway for a long minute.

Luyu was already there, sitting next to a blanket wrapped kid. The kid, Hutch realized, that had been on his way to the gas station when they'd torn up Starsky's street.

Hutch tried to bite back the bitterness in his voice when he asked, "Who's he?" It didn't work. He sounded bitter, and hateful and angry and the kid flinched at the question.

Luyu put a gentle hand on the kid's blanket covered back and said, "Tell him your name."

"Beemer." The kid said, his head coming out of the blankets like a turtle. "It was supp-posed to be Beeman Hughes-"

"It's nice to meet you, Beemer. Why is he here?" Hutch asked.

The look Luyu gave him was of surprise and hurt, but she didn't say anything and Hutch put his hand up and shook his head. "Never mind." He said, and walked away.

He paced down the hall then back up it, stopping just shy of the waiting room before he turned back. He'd made four circuits of the long rows of tile, head down, focused on his shadow going the one way, and the glare of the lights going the other. He was starting the fifth lap when Luyu's feet appeared on the tile he normally turned around on.

"I know how you feel about him." Luyu said, standing with her feet together, her arms wrapped around her torso, a narrow slender statue in the middle of the floor, directly in his path. "I've seen the both of you more than once in the worst possible situations." She said, struggling against her own hurt. Her own worry. "You don't get mean, when he's hurt, Hutch. It's not you."

Hutch worked his lips for a moment, squirming one tile away from the spot that would let him walk away and ignore the truth for just a little longer. But Luyu was standing on that tile, not letting him do it.

"Yeah." He grunted finally. "Ok." He said, his hand slapping on his thigh, then riding up to his belt where it rested. A sign that Hutch was giving in. "It's my fault. I should have hounded him about his back, the first time he whined about it. I should have paid better attention to him. And don't shake your head at me, Luyu, it's my job!" Hutch's volume had gone from a sedate whisper to a shout in seconds. "It's my job. To watch his back, literally, every moment I'm with him. It's not my job to be me. It's not my job to do what I want to do. It's not even my job have my own life, it is my job to watch out for him."

"Stop." Luyu said softly, then put her hands out and captured the flying hands that Hutch couldn't seem to figure out what to do with. "Stop...this isn't about a job. If it's your job to take care of him, its his job to take care of you."

Hutch nodded but Luyu tightened her grip around his wrists, and jerked his arms, making him look at her. "Say it."

"It's his job to take care of me." Hutch repeated, avoiding her gaze, but she tugged again and he repeated the phrase, hearing himself say it. Then he heard what he'd just said before and he felt where she was going with it.

"He was taking care of you, Hutch," she said, her hands raising and laying against his cheeks as the tears she'd kept back finally flooded onto her face. "He was taking care of his partner, whom he loves, when he sent you home with me. Don't call it a job, don't put up that shield. You love him and he loves you, it's been established since the beginning of time."

Hutch began to crumble and she pulled him in. He didn't cry, he just melted.

"It happened, Hutch. It couldn't have been prevented. It couldn't have been foreseen. We don't even know how it happened, but it did. It was a run of bad luck. It was bad spirits. It was just an accident."

She held him, felt wetness against her neck. It might have been a single tear or a hundred, but it was what had needed to be shed. "That's why I brought Beemer here."

Luyu felt Hutch pull away but she kept his face in her hands. "What happened when we got home last night?" She asked.

Hutch tried to throw his mind back that far. It took a minute but he flashed on the phone call he had made, a call Hutch had made to Hank the Tow Truck guy asking if he knew of a fast way to get parts delivered to a home address. He'd given Hank the list of part names and Starsky's address and Hank had promised to make the call before he closed up shop.

It had been Hutch's plan to double check on it in the morning but...the distraction that had kept him in bed was still standing in front of him, keeping him from looking away, waiting for an answer.

"I made a call." Hutch said, and Luyu let his face go.

"You made a call and early yesterday morning before we were even awake a delivery truck pulled up in front of Beemer's house and a delivery man knocked on his door and asked if he had ordered car parts. Beemer said, No, he hadn't. But he bet that the man with the car like a sunburned Zebra had. Beemer told the delivery man that Starsky had gone for a run in the rain, but he would be back." Luyu waited a moment, suddenly aware that Hutch was holding her. Not in the eager, needy way of before, but because it was natural. "You should listen to him, Hutch." She urged, and watched Hutch's focus shift toward the waiting room.

Once they were comfortable in the uncomfortable chairs, and once Hutch had apologized for cutting Beemer off, and let Beemer tell him what his name was supposed to have been but for an errant nail, he started his story where Luyu left off.

"I like cars. I like the Zebra car. I know that S-starzkee…" Beemer tried, getting an encouraging nod from Luyu. "...he calls it a zebra sometimes. When's he getting ready to leave. Or when you visit." Beemer said, pointing to Hutch. "So but...so...so I knew that the delivery truck was for him. So I told the man that Starzkee would be back and I went into my house and I made my breakfast. Ham and eggs. And I watched the toaster so that the toast wouldn't burn. And I made my tea and I started watching my show.

I was going to call the cab, to take me to Grandma because today is Saturday and I go to Grandma on Saturday, but I couldn't because the phone wouldn't...beeeeeeep." Beemer perfectly mimicked a dial tone for a five count, then he nodded to himself, and said, "Good." Like he'd done it right, despite his own concerns that he might mess it up.

"So I left my house and I looked both ways and I crossed the street and I asked Starzkee if I could use his phone. He was with the Zebra and it was the first time that I saw it up close and I touched it." Beemer's running storyline, almost completely without inflection, came to a grinding halt and he looked away from the spot on the wall that he'd been focused on, flashing Hutch a guilty look.

Hutch realized a second later that a response was required and said, "You touched it? You...you touched his car?"

Beemer nodded. "He was angry." He said, the end of the sentence turning up like there was more, but Beemer went quiet again.

"I'm...I'm sure he didn't mean to be. He does care about that car."

"He said the car was shy. Is that why it's red?"

The question was the end of the sentence that had started ten minutes before. The end of a long thought that Beemer had been holding in like a breath of air. The pause was long enough that Hutch again realized he had to respond and he couldn't help the smile.

"No." he said, already softening up toward the kid, "It's just the color of the paint."

"Candy apple red."

"That's right." Hutch said, surprised.

"I looked it up." Beemer said, then flipped gears and was right back on track. "Starzkee said his phone wasn't working either, and said, "...it's a two mile walk but there's a gas station out that way. They got a payphone.""

The quote shocked both of them. Not only had Beemer said it with a perfect imitation of Starsky's accent, but with an inflection and tone so completely foreign to Beemer's way of talking, it was as if Starsky had just stepped into the room.

Hutch gave Luyu a stunned look and she grinned at him, then focused immediately on the story again.

"And...so I said I would make the call for the taxi on the pay phone and Starzkee said, "Ok, Beemer. Be careful." And so I walked down to the gas station but I got there and didn't have money. So I walked back. And when I walked back, the truck was there and Starzkee was getting his packages. And the truck drove away and he asked me if I'd made my call and I said, "No, you see I arrived but I had forgotten that I didn't have change." And so I went into my house and I got the money and I went and made my call and came back. And Starzkee waved at me and I waved back, and went into my house."

"Did the cab come?" Hutch asked, wrapped up in the story despite himself.

"No." Beemer said. "Starzkee screamed. It sounded bad. Like when a bad guy gets shot on TV. But there wasn't a _bang!_ And I left the house, but it was raining and I was wet. He was wet too. He was sitting against the wall and he was saying a name, and I thought I had better try to call the name he was saying. But my phone didn't work, and his phone didn't work. So I went to the gas station, but the operator didn't know the name, so I went back. And when I got back Starzkee wasn't in the driveway anymore. He was in his house, on his couch. And he was cold. And I take first aid classes every year because I worked at the pool. I was just the concessions man, but we all have to take first aid.

I got a blanket and then I got the water and I kept his head cool, and his legs warm, and I tried to put the peas on his arm, but he didn't like it. And then he woke up and he told me I had to call the police. And I still had change in my pockets."

Beemer reached down and unconsciously felt his pockets through the blanket. "Two dimes. And I had to hurry. But I wasn't careful and I tripped and scraped my knee. But it wasn't too bad. And I called the police because I memorized the number, and the ambulance came. I could hear it, and I watched it go by, and I listened and I watched it go by again with the little bunny car behind it. And then Miss Luyu came and got me. And...asked me questions." Beemer's voice suddenly dropped to a whisper, and his eyes strayed back to the corner. "...and she told me I was a hero." He said, barely audible, closing in on himself.

Hutch met Luyu's eyes, the only things visible with her hand covering her mouth.

"Hey Beemer." Hutch said, holding his hand out.

It took Beemer a minute but he finally worked up the courage to look at Hutch, looked down to his hand, and recognized the gesture that was being offered.

It was a handshake. A handshake was the way businessmen showed each other respect, the way important men greeted each other. Presidents and senators and lawyers and doctors and...and even police officers greeted each other respectfully with handshakes. Heroes in the newspapers had their pictures taken, shaking hands with the mayor. A handshake was a big deal and Beemer took in a deep breath and slid his hand into Hutch's, trying to do it absolutely right. Trying to remember everything he'd ever learned about shaking hands.

"You saved my partner's life." Hutch said, waiting until Beemer's eyes met his. "Thank you." He said.

And Beemer beamed.


	7. Chapter 7

Starsky was in the hospital a week before he was scheduled to be released. Luyu had kept her plans to travel to Tehachapi, but when he wasn't at work, Hutch had been a constant presence in the small hospital room. Even Beemer had visited once, _after_ Hutch had filled in the blanks for Starsky.

The complicated damage to his shoulder had taken two separate surgeries to repair before the joint and upper arm were immobilized in a partial cast. The break had been bad but the greater concern had been for the damage to the muscle tissue. Multiple tears had to be repaired, and once the cast came off there would be physical therapy.

"Lots of physical therapy." Starsky had said, slurring his words, but getting the idea across clearly. Starsky's strict adherence to the exercises and meds would be the telling factor for a full recovery.

At the first opportunity Hutch had ordered a tow for the Torino, getting it to Merle's garage where he asked the man to finish up what Starsky had started. He'd taken the cardigan to a tailor to get it cleaned and repaired and had done what he could to fix up Starsky's apartment in preparation for his arrival.

The phone snafu had been a combination of larceny and hundreds of unpaid bills. All of them had been sent out late by an inconsiderate employee of the phone company, who had to delay the billing services...to finish robbing the company blind. The phone company discovered the deficit first, cut off services to thousands until they could track down where the leak in funds had come from, then had gradually repaired the problem. That resulted in the strange fluke the day of the accident, and questionable service for the week after.

More than a few customers had experienced financial and personal losses as a result and the phone company was looking at about three dozen law suits in civil court. Hutch had watched the commotion from a detached distance, secretly satisfied that he if he had to blame someone (other than himself as he had been ordered to do by his...ahem...personal physician), for the catastrophe of a weekend, subconsciously he could blame Bay City Telephone.

But on the morning that his partner was to be released, Hutch arrived at the hospital to find no Starsky.

Five minutes of back tracking told him that Starsky had released himself four hours earlier, called a cab from the front lobby phone, then scribbled a note for his partner on a scrap of paper and left.

The note said: "Need some time, buddy. I'll call. Starsk."

The smears of ink on the paper told Hutch his partner had written it with his left hand, but his penmanship was just as shaky as if he'd written it with his right. Hutch made sure his partner had left with all his belongings and the prescriptions he was supposed to keep up with, then reluctantly accepted that he didn't have a choice and left the hospital sans one curly-top brunet.

There were two places he figured his partner would go. The first was his home and Hutch called, let the phone ring twenty times, then drove to Starsky's apartment. The windows were dark, the door locked and no one there to answer it. Hutch checked in with Beemer, the young man now renowned for keeping tabs on Starsky's house.

No cabs had been there, Beemer assured him, nor any repaired Torinos.

Hutch drove to Merle's customizing shop, keeping the Galaxie well away from the fence that housed the mechanic's waiting victims. The Torino wasn't in the lot, and Merle told him he hadn't seen Starsky take the car, but a personal check for the cost of repairs had shown up on his blotter where the Torino keys had been.

Short of putting out an APB on the well known car, Hutch was out of options. He'd taken the day off to get Starsky settled, and found himself cruising the streets, visiting old haunts, hunting for his partner as casually as he could manage. No one had seen Starsky, or the Torino.

It was nearly sundown before Hutch thought about the Point.

The traditional hook-up spot overlooked the city on one side and backed up to a narrow decline that lead to a rocky beach. The last time they'd had reason to be there had been three or four years into their partnership.

A Torino had been stolen, driven to the point by two kids just looking for a good time, then had become the scene of a crime. Two hit men, assuming they were taking out Starsky, blew the center of the windshield into the front seat and murdered the two kids.

Hutch had relived the whole case in his mind by the time he got to the secluded spot Starsky had managed to find.

His partner sat on the hood of the Torino, feet stretched out and crossed at the ankles, reclining against the windshield, studying the city below, occasionally sucking on a straw sticking out of what was undoubtedly a milkshake.

The repaired cardigan that Hutch had left at the hospital, was stuffed under Starsky's head as a pillow and he'd crammed his unruly curls under a knit cap that Hutch hadn't seen him wear in ages.

As Hutch stepped out of the Galaxie he heard Starsky's voice over the rustle of the wind. "Took you long enough."

"Well, I...made the mistake of thinking you'd play it smart this time, go straight home, put yourself to bed."

"Go straight home, put yourself to bed." Starsky mocked quietly, his voice coming through his nose. "How'd that work out for ya?"

"Lousy." Hutch said, then snorted at the small but proud smile that briefly appeared on Starsky's face. "Have you been up here all day?"

Starsky stared out at the crimson rays of sun glancing off the city below and said, "Well...not all day." His head rolled to the side and Hutch was instantly surprised and concerned at how tired his partner looked.

The guilt and the worry flooded him, and he struggled to keep his knee-jerk response to himself. The irritated sigh that his partner instantly gave him told Hutch he'd failed. "I followed you around for about an hour, and I thought about ending your little search early...but I knew I'd get _that_ look outta you-"

"Oh...what look was that Starsk? The look of the sane person watching the insane person kill himself slowly?" Hutch said, his voice soft.

"Yeah…" Starsky said, his volume dropping, his eyes playing over the city. "That look. So, I left your present in the back of the car and took off again."

Hutch stared at him. "Present?"

The look he got back from his partner didn't make him feel better.

Starsky said, "Yeah. In the back seat."

And Hutch glanced through his rear passenger window afraid of what he'd find. He was surprised to see a thick log of rolled up magazines, tied with a ribbon, still sitting on the seat. Hutch pulled the door open, fished out the magazines, then walked them over to his partner.

He'd pulled the tail of the ribbon, undoing the bow that someone else had to have tied, with one yank. The magazines opened flat in his hands and Hutch stared at the Ford symbol on the face of each of them.

"These are parts catalogues. For...the past three years."

"Yes, they are." Starsky said. "You're gonna help me."

"Help you what?" Hutch asked, leafing through the top catalogue.

"Find a coolant system that I can modify for the Torino so that it doesn't conk out on the hottest day of the year again."

"Starsky-"

"And after we do that..." Starsky added cutting him off. "You're gonna help me find a new car."

Hutch kept his eyes glued to the catalogue. The words he thought he'd heard were foreign to the man he knew and loved. Curiously, they weren't necessarily welcome either, but the idea that they formed instantly brought waves of relief to him. Starsky was quiet for a long time but for soft grunts, but Hutch didn't look up. He was too busy trying to figure out what was wrong with the situation. Why he felt like the world was tilting.

"Hutch...could you help me?" Starsky finally asked, mildly frustrated.

Hutch glanced up and nearly dropped the catalogues, moving in to help Starsky work his way off the hood, hampered by the cast he still wore, and the pain he had to be in if he'd neglected to remember pain meds.

"Do you want the cardigan?" Hutch asked, finally recognize the man he was helping.

This was a Starsky that he knew well. The Starsky that had grown too tired, or was in too much pain, to stubbornly refuse cold facts. That he had limitations. This was the Starsky that succumbed to pain pills and blankets tucked around him and Hutch turning into the crazed mother hen. Hutch knew what to do with _this_ Starsky.

He still didn't know what to do with the Starsky that just admitted a willingness to give up the Torino.

"I'm not talkin' about givin' up the Torino." Starsky muttered, shivering as Hutch helped him into the voluminous sweater.

The blond wasn't surprised that Starsky had read his mind, figuring that by now it was inevitable. He put one hand on Starsky's good arm, felt his partner start to lean, and perched himself on the edge of the hood as Starsky pressed against his side.

Hutch's whole body sighed and he closed his eyes, letting himself breathe. Letting the low level of worry and fear and guilt and uncertainty he'd been poisoned by all day...all week, ease out of his body.

"We just...you know...we gotta have a reliable car." Starsky was quiet for a minute, then added, "At least I do. That hunk-a-junk-"

Hutch started to snicker, his body shaking with the tectonic relief that came with the familiar jibe. "So you finally want us to buy a car together?" Hutch said. "No furniture, no curtains."

"I already got furniture." Starsky muttered, then pushed upright and carefully slid from the hood, dragging Hutch off with him and pulling him into his chest with his good arm.

Hutch was still grinning when they parted, keeping a guiding hand on Starsky's good elbow until he could look at his partner and decide, even in the dusk, if he was stable.

"We're a living breathing single unit, Hutch. I mean, we gotta be to do this job. To...live this life."

Starsky brushed his good hand over his face. He might have been swatting at a fly. There might have been something else on his face. Hutch just watched him.

"I was thinkin' about this car. Thinkin' about how much work I put into keepin' the thing running. Work that Merle's done. And as much as I hate to admit it, it isn't built for what we put it through. Do you know how many times I've paid for a new emergency brake cable...including today?"

"Fifteen." Hutch said, overlapping his partner's voice saying the same number.

"Yeah. How did you know that?"

"You know how many times _I've_ paid for you to get a new emergency brake cable?"

Starsky gave him a confused look and Hutch held up three fingers. Then said, "Including this time. Merle's been overpaid."

Starsky snorted, then switched gears and said, "The point is...it may take a while. It may not be possible that such a car exists, but I want us to find the best damned police car in the world, ok? One that has the solid, rust-bucket, clunker quality that you like..."

"Starsky...there is more to my car than rust and si-"

"I know that, Hutch, I know that." Starsky said, "I don't know what it is exactly, but that's why I need your help. I want a car with enough speed to keep up with the bad guys, that maybe floats a little on the road instead of...lumbering."

"Lumbering?" Hutch asked, but he was grinning.

Starksy gave a half-hearted shrug that ended in a controlled wince. "Look the point is-"

But Hutch cut him off, putting up his hands. "I like it." He said.

Starsky stared for a second then grinned. "You like it?"

"Yeah. I like it. I think it's a great idea."

The grin got bigger and some of the buried Starsky excitement came out in an excited wiggle that Hutch was certain Starsky would never do again if he realized he'd done it. Starsky chucked Hutch on the arm for good measure, before the stiffness in his shoulder caught up with him. It was a smooth enough transition, but a day of living essentially on the lam had worn his partner out.

"Are you uh...done playing hookie?"

The look Starsky gave him accepted that he didn't have a choice, but there was no way in hell he was going to verbally admit that he was done in.

"Can we get chinese food on the way home?"

"And pizza?" Hutch asked, grinning and opening the driver's side door.

"Chinese people don't make pizza.." Starsky muttered, sinking carefully into the driver's seat of the tomato. Hutch waited until his partner was situated then closed the door for him.

Starsky had just started to awkwardly roll down his window when Hutch muttered, "You don't know that…"

He turned toward his squash and grinned when he heard Starsky's laugh behind him.

The blond waited for the bright red car to pull out and turn around before he started his engine and cranked the wheel to follow.

He watched the sunburned Zebra bounce slowly over the torn up grass and onto the gravel road, the last of the orange light gleaming on the thin strip of chrome that lined the white blaze. The car might have been looking at its retirement days in the near future but Hutch was willing to admit, if only to himself, that he was fond of the old girl.

After all, it was good to have the Torino, and his partner, back on the road.


End file.
